Facebook Teams with Rotten Tomatoes for Instant Personalization

Facebook has teamed up with Rotten Tomatoes to expand their Instant Personalization feature. This is the controversial feature that allows a select few access to your Facebook data without your explicit permission. You don’t have to Connect with these sites, login, or otherwise authorize them. With Rotten Tomatoes, you’ll relevant movie reviews immediately “without having to register, search for friends, or fill out a profile.”

The reason Instant Personalization is so polarizing is actually the same reason it’s so interesting. Imagine if every website you visited already knew a little about you and tailored itself accordingly. Even though the information exchanged with these select third party sites is stuff that you’ve already designated as public, the new feature just added fuel to the Facebook privacy fire. Initially, it launched with three partners: Yelp, Microsoft Docs, and Pandora.

It’s been a little while since all that went down, so Facebook is cautiously moving forward. In their blog post, they remind us how Instant Personalization works: “Like other instant personalization partner websites, you only bring the public parts of your profile to Rotten Tomatoes so they can create your social experience.” They also give a link to a video that explains the personalization in more detail.

If you’re logged into Facebook, you’ll see personalization information immediately. If not, you can hit the Facebook Login button. I must admit that seeing what movies my friends are into is pretty useful. Privacy issues aside, Rotten Tomatoes just got a lot more useful.

Here are some important points about the Instant Personalization program that Facebook sent to TechCrunch:

  • Users control Instant Personalization – when they arrive at a site they can disable the experience, or they can turn off the program for all websites in their Facebook settings.
  • If you have previously opted out of the Instant Personalization program, you’ll continue to be opted out for any new sites.
  • Partner sites follow clear product/security/privacy guidelines and may only use your public information and friend lists to offer a more personalized experience.
  • All experiences are based on explicit actions (i.e. info you’ve typed into your profile or clicked “Like”); passive behavior (what you’re reading) is never surfaced.
  • User data is never transferred to ad networks. Facebook also clarifies that “No revenue is ever exchanged as part of this program and user data cannot be transferred by partners to third-party ad networks.”
  • Expanding the program slowly over the next few months with a handful of partner sites where value to people is clear. Focused on verticals where you already find information through friends in the real world (examples like: reviews, food, travel, music, movies).


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